OUR BEST FRIENDS

Tag: chris grant

The assistant district attorney prosecuting the case against Tiara Davis, accused of beating her Pomeranian on the elevator at a New York City housing project, broke into laughter in the courtroom yesterday.

While reading Davis’ statement about how she beat the dog, Assistant District Attorney Steven Constantiner began chuckling, the New York Daily News reported.

“He was laughing and had to turn away because he couldn’t control the laughter,” said, Stacy Schneider, a Legal Aid lawyer representing Davis. “I didn’t see any humor in the statement.”

Davis, 31, is charged with beating a 9-pound Pomeranian named Sparky into unconsciousness in an elevator at the Grant Houses in Manhattan. Police quoted her as saying: “It wasn’t like I was killing him or anything like that. I mean I wasn’t gonna really hurt him.”

Constantiner started laughing when he was reading part of Davis’ statement that described the dog relieving itself in the elevator.

“The assistant district attorney laughed briefly and unexpectedly while reading to the court the vulgarities the defendant used in her statement to police,” acknowledged Erin Duggan, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office. Constantiner declined comment.

Davis, a vocational counselor, pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor animal-cruelty charges. Her lawyer denied she made the statements to police. Davis, who has since surrendered Sparky, was caught on video beating the 4-year-old dog and was arrested by the ASPCA. She faces up to a year in jail.

Her arrest came just after another resident of the Grant Houses, Chris Grant, was charged with animal cruelty in connection with beating a dog — an incident police say was caught on the elevator surveillance cameras earlier.

PETA is asking the New York District Attorney’s office to “vigorously prosecute” Chris Grant and Tiara Davis — two residents of a city housing project that police say were caught on elevator surveillance videos abusing dogs.

“The viciousness shown in the abuse of these animals must not go unpunished,” said PETA Director Martin Mersereau. “New York residents have reason to be concerned. According to leading mental health professionals and law enforcement agencies, perpetrators of violent acts against animals are often repeat offenders who pose a serious threat to all animals, including humans.”

Grant and Davis face charges of cruelty to animals stemming from separate incidents in which they were allegedly each caught on surveillance video repeatedly kicking and violently yanking their small dogs at the Grant Housing Development in Upper Manhattan.

Grant is accused of abusing Chuvi-Duvi, a 12-pound Pomeranian-Chihuahua mix belonging to his girlfriend; Davis is charged with jerking and beating Sparky, her 9-pound Pomeranian, until it lost consciousness.

PETA is asking that the defendants, if convicted, be sentenced to periods of incarceration, prohibited from owning or harboring animals, and ordered to undergo thorough psychological evaluations followed by mandatory counseling.

A New York City woman has been charged after police say she was caught on video kicking and jerking her Pomeranian on an elevator in the same housing project where surveillance cameras captured a dog being beaten earlier this month.

Tiara Davis was charged with torturing and injuring an animal Monday. The incident was recorded by video cameras in the elevators of the Grant Houses Sunday morning. Police released the videos Tuesday.

The video shows Sparky, her 4-year-old Pomeranian, being beaten and jerked by its leash until unconscious.

Davis, 31, said she lost her temper when the dog relieved himself before getting outside.

“I kept telling him, ‘Sparky! Wait! Wait!’ ” Davis, a vocational counselor for ex-offenders, told the New York Daily News. “I became a little frustrated,” she added. “It was never my intention to hurt him.”